it was--how could that
conceivably be the face of a man who--

"Won't you shake hands?"

Turning, she gave him briefly the tips of fingers cold as ice. As their
hands touched, a sudden tragic sense overwhelmed him that here was a
farewell indeed. The light contact set him shaking; and for a moment his
iron self-control, which covered torments she never guessed at, almost
forsook him.

"Good-by. And may that God of yours who loves all that is beautiful and
sweet be good to you--now and always."

She made no reply; he wheeled, abruptly, and left her. But on the
threshold he was checked by the sound of her voice.

The interview, from the beginning, had profoundly affected her; these
last words, so utterly unlike his usual manner of speech, had shaken her
through and through. For some moments she had been miserably aware that,
if he would but tell her everything and throw himself on her mercy, she
would instantly forgive him. And now, when she saw that she could not
make him do that, she felt that tiny door, which she had thought
double-locked forever, creaking open, and heard herself saying in a
small, desperate voice:--

"_You did write it, didn't you_?"

But he paused only long enough to look at her and say, quite
convincingly:--

"You need hardly ask that--now--need you?"

* * * * *

He went home, to his own bedroom, lit his small student-lamp, and sat
down at his table to begin a new article. The debt of money which was
his patrimony required of him that he should make every minute tell now.

In old newspaper files at the State Library, he had found the facts of
his father's defalcations. The total embezzlement from the Weyland
estate, allowing for $14,000 recovered in the enforced settlement of
Surface's affairs, stood at $203,000. But that was twenty-seven years
ago, and in all this time interest had been doubling and redoubling:
simple interest, at 4%, brought it to $420,000; compound interest to
something like $500,000, due at the present moment. Against this could
be credited only his father's "nest-egg"--provided always that he could
find it--estimated at not less than $50,000. That left his father's son
staring at a debt of $450,000, due and payable now. It was of course,
utterly hopeless. The interest on that sum alone was $18,000 a year, and
he could not earn $5000 a year to save his immortal soul.

So the son knew that, however desperately he might strive, he wou